Active iPen Stylus Is Like a Wacom Cintiq for iPads

There are roughly one gazillion iPad styluses out there and–despite their stylistic differences–they all work in the same way: by mimicking your meaty fingers. What they all lack, and what would make them a lot more accurate, is an on-screen indicator showing where your lines will be drawn.

IPen fixes this, taking a similar approach to Wacom’s Inkling accessory, only for the iPad instead of for paper. The kit consists of two parts: the pen and the digitizer. The digitizer slots into the iPad’s 30-pin dock port, from where it listens for infrared and ultrasonic signals from the pen itself. Thus, after a simple calibration (touching the iPen onto the screen), the pen knows exactly where it is.

This translates to way more accurate drawing. Watch the comparison video to see the difference. If you have ever used a stylus on the iPad you’ll appreciate the difference immediately:

Knowing where the pen is before it touches the screen also allows the software to put a cursor on-screen, letting you control your strokes better. The pen requires a couple of watch batteries, and developers need to add in support, but it appears that many high-quality note-taking apps are already on board.

You might think that this amazing device would come from a company like Wacom, but it is in fact a Kickstarter project from a company called Cregle. It has already be funded, and is on track for a January release, whereupon it will cost $90 (Kickstarter funders can get it for $80). There’s just one thing missing: Pressure sensitivity won’t be coming until v2.0.